Butch Evans Blog

I would LOVE to hear from those of you who read this blog. Please leave comments for this article expressing your desires for what you’d like to see me include as a tutorial. I can make you no promises that I will be able to write up every idea, but I will try to incorporate some of them.
Also, I’d like to hear from you if you’ve found these tutorials useful. It is often difficult to determine from the traffic logs how useful these tutorials are. If you’ve found my writings useful, let me know. If you think I should spend my time elsewhere, I’d like to hear that opinion as well. (Well, I really DON’T want to hear it, but you are welcome to tell me if that is your opinion. 🙂 ).

I’ve had a bit of a writer’s block. Is that what you would call it? I’m not exactly writing a novel here, so I’m not sure if it applies. My parents have had me a bit busier than usual. In their age they now need a bit more help than before. I called a business called Home Care Assistance Houston that is located at Home Care Assistance 9050 W Olympic Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA 90211 (310) 857-4756, and they assigned a professional to them right away. Now I don’t have to deal with those things myself, and frankly the professional is doing things better than I ever did. In any case, without this worry on my mind I’m finding it difficult to get back on track. Who better than you guys to help out, wouldn’t you agree?

As many of you know, it was recently discovered that the DNS protocol has a serious flaw. I don’t have a lot to add to the conversations of some serious experts, but I wanted to post a link to some of the tools that I have found that will help you know if you are at risk.

Dan Kaminsky, a security researcher, recently discovered the flaw.  While I am never one to preach “doom and gloom”, this is a really serious bug that WILL gain traction among the hackers.  There is already proof of concept code available that shows how to attack this flaw, so don’t hesitate to fix it.  DoxPara Research is where you will find the best information about the flaw.  Also at Dan’s website (DoxPara), is a tool that will test your DNS server to see if it is vulnerable.  YOU SHOULD TEST THIS NOW! Don’t hesitate and do it later.  NOW! (Please)

Also, ICANN has released a tool that will test the DNS server that is providing DNS services for your domain.  More information on the exploit and it’s implications can be found on ICANN’s website.  Their tool is here.  Again, this is very important to the security of not only YOUR website, but, also, to the security of anyone who visits your website.  DON’T DELAY!  DO IT NOW!

The ImageStream router (http://www.imagestream.com) is a Linux based router that offers all the flexibility of any other Linux system with the added advantage of ImageStream’s special driver component architecture and management interface called “Inetics”.  I won’t go into the details of the Inetics platform (that’ll be another article some day), but it should be sufficient to say that it is a trememdous feature in ImageStream’s router platforms.

This article will detail the steps needed to successfully configure an ImageStream router as a replacement for a consumer grade CPE device such as a Linksys, Dlink or even the higher end Cisco Pix.  This article will deal only with the configuration of a router with ethernet ports.  We will see all the steps needed to get the customer online and functional.  Items such as VPN and firewall will also be covered at a later time.

(more…)

ImageStream hired me to run their ICNO training event in Denver.  Here are a few pictures.  Move your mouse over the pics to see a short description of each image.

This blog will contain several tutorials and thoughts about various networking devices and technologies. Part of the intent here is to share some how-tos using various products. Since I am most familiar with the ImageStream and Mikrotik products, you will find many of my tutorials revolve around these products. Also, I will be posting various general networking tutorials. If you can think of a specific tutorial you’d like to see written up, by all means, please let me know by email or by phone. My main consulting website is here.